One for the record books

This morning was a hellish adventure. It's one of those days that you can never conceive of when you finally decide "let's have kids". How could anyone? It's impossible to imagine all the things can possibly occur when you're lugging around two small children.

I woke up this morning just before 5:00 am. I considered getting up, enjoying my morning routine of quiet and then going for a nice 20 km run. But the bed was so warm, and I'd stayed up a little too late last night....and so I snuggled back down among the blankets and went back to sleep. I got to sleep in until 7:00 am...when Miss Molly (who had been in our bed since some point in the middle of the night, as always) woke up and demanded that we go downstairs.

So far, so good.

The first part of the morning was fine. I hung out with Molly a bit, then at about 7:30 we woke up Chris and Emma, to get the day started. I showered and got dressed, etc, then joined the rest of the family downstairs to finish my grocery list and have breakfast.

Still, no problems there. The girls were fairly cooperative about getting ready (they sometimes aren't) and we got out the door about an hour earlier than we're usually able to manage. I was feeling pretty proud of myself! I wasn't terribly happy about having to walk there in the cold, but ya do what ya gotta do, right?

First stop: The health food store. I hate taking them in there because they always run amok, grabbing soaps off the shelf to smell, taking things down to show me, digging through the packaged snacks to find something to beg me to buy. I love the health food store, but I never get to enjoy it when I'm with the girls, which is pretty much always. I grabbed my items and we got checked out with a minimum of fuss. Yeah, there was a little grabbing and digging, but less than usual and nothing that I couldn't easily cope with.

On the way out of the health food store was when it all began. Molly suddenly - and completely irrationally, I might add - began demanding that she be able to take off her shoes. She started crying and whining and becoming quite insistent that they be removed. I calmly and gently explained why they needed to stay on. She continued to object. I loaded the two girls into the bike trailer and headed for the grocery store, Molly wailing the entire way, despite my best efforts to calm her.

Once finally inside the grocery store, it is always a big production this time of year, getting the girls out of their coats, and Molly into the shopping cart. The first cart I picked didn't move - the wheels were completely locked. Which meant that I had to transfer everything - coats, backpack, reusable shopping bags, and Molly into another cart.

Sigh.

Molly was still in quite a state. The only way I could finally calm her was to agree to removing her shoes. She was sitting in the cart, it was warm inside the store, so what did it matter?

We made it halfway through produce when Emma announced that she needed to pee. I mustered up as much patience as I could manage, which was worn pretty thin after listening to a two year old wail for 10 minutes, and trekked across the entire store to the bathroom. I generally hate public bathrooms anyhow, but it always seems to me that the ones at the grocery store are the worst ones of all.

Once at the bathroom, I put on Molly's shoes, removed her from the cart, gathered up our coats, my backpack, and our reusable shopping bags so I could get them into the bathroom.

One thing I really hate about this particular store is that just outside the bathroom they have kid book displays set up. The girls love running over to them, both on the way into, and out of, the bathroom to grab and have a quick look before I can usher them away.

We made it through the bathroom adventure, I successfully hauled them away from the book displays, and went back to produce. Okay. This is going better now. We moved on to the Organics section, picked up what we needed there. I was just heading over to the vitamins when Emma announced, "My tummy hurts." I knew what was coming. About a minute and a half later she proclaimed, "I need to poop."

She needed to poop. Less than 10 minutes after being in the bathroom. So once again, we trekked across the entire store to the bathroom. The girls ran to the book displays. I peeled them away and hustled them into the can. When we got inside, I saw that whoever had used the washroom since the last time we'd been there, had left a nice puddle of urine on the floor, directly in front of the toilet. Great. We managed to work around that, Emma did what she needed to do, and about five minutes later we were headed back to do our shopping, but not before they grabbed a couple of Backyardigans books to paw through. Ugh.

We made it almost the whole way through the store when I remembered something from three aisles over. By now I was noticing that the grocery store was pretty crowded, which is unusual for a Monday morning. Then I remembered hearing something about a big snow coming, which made sense to me. I ended up having to practically shove through crowds of people lined up at the checkouts just to make it across the store.

We were just about finished when Molly piped up, "I needta poop."

I could NOT believe my ears. Deep breath. I could make it through this, honest, I could.

We walked back across the grocery store to the bathroom, yet again. For the third time, I gathered up our coats, my backpack, and our bundle of reusable bags, hauled the girls away from the book display, and got them into the bathroom.

"Mommy, I need some privacy."

Privacy? What exactly does a two year old need privacy for? I explained that I couldn't leave her all alone in the bathroom and that we would have to stay there with her. She then proceeded to produce the world's tiniest turd before announcing that she was "all done!" All done...right. Then she asked if she could go out and look at the Backyardigans books. I had a feeling that I knew her motivation for asking to go to the bathroom again, and it had nothing to do with satisfying basic bodily functions.

At least someone had cleaned up the puddle in front of the toilet.

So...back out of the bathroom, put coats, backpack and bags back into the cart, heave Molly up into the cart as well. We finished getting what we needed to get, made a quick stop in the toy aisle (I always let them have a look at the end of our shopping trip) and then went to find a checkout that wasn't crazy busy. Good luck.

TWO cashiers were on, trying to wait on customers, and the lineups were four people deep. The line I got into was the better of the two, and it wasn't until after I was in the lineup that I realized why. This cashier, who I'd made the mistake of choosing before, is s-l-o-w. On top of that, she's a bad grocery packer, too. One of my biggest pet peeves are the cashiers who overload the reusable bags, making them almost impossible to lift into and out of the cart. I accepted my choice and went through her checkout anyhow.

Going through cash with Emma is always an adventure. She loves hiding in the empty checkout stalls, straightening the chocolate bar displays, and trying to climb onto the checkout belts that aren't in use. It does almost no good to speak to her for doing any of these things - by this point it's like she's reached the end of her rope with the whole grocery shopping experience, and she simply can't listen anymore. I tried my best to explain very carefully and gently why climbing in behind the boxes of artificial trees at the end of the aisle wasn't such a good idea. She insisted that she was a "super spy" and needed to hide in there. I hauled her away, and had her stand closer to where I was.

We made it out of the checkout. At the door, Molly out of the cart, into her hat and coat. Emma's coat zipped up. Me zipped up. Okay. Time to go.

Once outside, I loaded up the bike trailer. Molly looked inside at her seat and started crying. "But mommy, there's bird poop in there!"

Bird poop?

It was snow from her shoes. I explained what it was, and yet she still whined and complained that she didn't want to get the bird poop on her feet. I loaded her in, and we started walking. These days, Emma needs to walk the kilometer and a half or so home from the grocery store, because two kids and the groceries in the trailer means too much weight. We already busted the front wheel attachment once from carrying too much, we can't let that happen again.

We weren't across the parking lot when it started.

"Mommy, I'm cold."

"Yes, Emma, I know, I'm cold too."

"I don't want to walk."

"I don't want to walk either, but we don't have any choice."

Despite my best efforts, conversation returned, time and time again, to how cold Emma was, and how she was sick of walking. I tried, really I did - but not even conversations about how much fun we were going to have over the Christmas holidays was enough to keep her focus off her discomfort. She began walking slower and slower.

Five minutes from home, I'd had enough. I stopped the trailer, loaded her into it, and practically ran the rest of the way home. Too much weight in the trailer be damned, I needed to be in the solace and comfort of my own home.

At least we made it home before it started snowing.

All things considered, I handled myself pretty well. I didn't lose my temper or snap at them, despite how thin my patience was getting with all the antics that were going on. Right now, they are watching a video, and I am enjoying the peace, wishing I had a big cup of coffee and a brownie to drown my sorrows. Unfortunately, the best I've got is a veggie dog and a glass of water.

I need to buck up. Who knows what this afternoon brings.